Industry News

Oil boiler sales hit highest levels for five years

Jeremy Hawksley, Director General of OFTEC

As new oil boiler sales hit their highest levels for five years, OFTEC is calling for reforms to be made to the Government’s Green Deal programme to encourage even greater take-up of high efficiency boilers in a bid to help meet the UK’s challenging climate change targets.

Figures from OFTEC show that last month’s total oil boiler sales were 26.2% higher than in September 2012 and encouragingly, total sales for the year to date are also up 14.6% on last year.

However, despite this rise in demand for new oil boilers, to date only 5,560 households have taken advantage of the cash-back option to upgrade their boiler under the Green Deal (the majority of which are gas users), suggesting the scheme is failing to attract the support it needs to contribute towards the Government’s 2050 carbon reduction targets.

OFTEC suggests a simple boiler scrappage scheme, similar to the one running successfully in Northern Ireland, would be far more effective in encouraging people to upgrade to an energy efficient boiler and get on the road towards making energy savings.

Jeremy Hawksley, Director General of OFTEC, said: “We saw an initial upsurge in sales of 28% between January and April 2013 compared to the same period in 2012, the highest figures for five years. This was largely attributed to the very cold winter but sales have continued to exceed 2012 levels for the rest of the year to date.

“Clearly there is a latent demand and many consumers are choosing to upgrade to a new condensing boiler which can greatly reduce carbon emissions and save up to 20% on fuel bills.

“However, relatively few households have chosen to upgrade their oil boiler through the Green Deal, despite the incentive of up to £310 cash-back. This is partly because under the scheme homeowners have to typically pay between £100 and £150 upfront for an initial home assessment so the cost saving incentive just isn’t there, even with the ‘cash-back’ element.”

A further issue is that most homeowners only consider replacing their existing boiler when it is beyond repair. However, in these ‘distress purchase’ situations, the householder is unlikely to have the time or be in the right frame of mind to go through the Green Deal’s complex application process, they just want their heating back on.

Jeremy Hawksley concludes: “With many thousands of standard efficiency boilers in need of upgrade, the Government should be making it as easy as possible for homeowners to install modern condensing boilers by making the process simple and worth consumers’ time in terms of both cost and effort.

“A straightforward and more generous scrappage scheme, similar to Northern Ireland’s initiative, would be far more effective in getting people to take the first steps towards reducing the UK’s carbon footprint, and hopefully, once they are on board, lead to greater strides.”